Birthday card sent 45 years late still holds special meaning

The parents of Susan Heifetz, a Brooklyn woman, passed away more than a decade ago. However, Heifetz miraculously received a letter in April of 2014 from her late parents postmarked June 26, 1969.

The letter was delivered to the apartment that she and her family lived in 45 years ago. The current tenant was nice enough to track Heifetz down over the phone. Convinced that this letter couldn’t have been for her, Heifetz asked the woman to describe the look of the letter. When she told Heifetz that the enveloped was sealed with a lipstick mark, she began to cry.

“This was my mother’s thing at the time,” Heifetz explained to CBS News. “To always seal it with a kiss.”

As if getting a card from her parents wasn’t special enough, that wasn’t the only nostalgic piece of mail she would receive. Just three days later, she got a letter that was written by an old boyfriend of hers who was serving in Vietnam at the time, along with a birthday card from her brother Barry.

So where have those letters been for the last 45 years? The answer to that question may remain a mystery. The post office has no idea what happened to the letters, and why they all of a sudden turned up now.

Heifetz is looking at the entire situation as a blessing from above.

“I always knew that my parents watched over my family,” she told CBS News. “It’s something else to get something like this. It validates everything.”

The letter from her parents gave her the push she needed to pack up and move closer to her brother out in Las Vegas.

You don’t have to wait 45 years to send a card to someone you love. This holiday season, reach out to friends, family and neighbors who you may have lost touch with. Holiday cards are an easy way to reconnect with loved ones and let them know how much you care about them.